Holiday gift for katphantom69 on tumblr!
by ghostly-scripts
Summary: The prompt: Clockwork being Danny's dad. Also Vortex x Nocturn Please read and review! Rating for character "death" and some mild angst.


**I was catphantom69 's secret santa on tumblr and one of their prompt options was Clockwork being Danny's dad, with Vortex x Nocturn! I don't know if this ship has a name, so if someone knows, please let me know so I can tag it on the original post :]**

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Wind blew sharply under him moving the falling hail and making it hit harder once it landed. Vortex wondered how big one would have to be to take off the tip of a pyramid, but decided that it would look just fine covered in snow, so the Egyptian monument would stand for another day.

"Having fun?" A familiar voice said and Vortex turned around with a grin plastered on his green face.

"As I haven't had in eons, handsome." He looked at the starry being next to him and softened said grin into a genuine smile; he extended his claw-like hand and pulled Dream (or Nocturn as the ghosts knew him) down to lay next to him in the cold cloud.

"You seem fine." Nocturn said softly red eyes set intently on his lover.

"I _am_ free." Was Weather's simple answer.

He could feel when Nocturn's awareness expanded around the globe-shaped world, seeing what had happened through the nightmares of these who were able to sleep.

"You have been busy."

Vortex scowled and looked away, holding back a flinch at the hurt expression on the other's face.

"If you're here only to tell me to stop, then you know-"

"No, it isn't that." Dream laid his hand on Weather's inner arm, gently caressing the green skin there. "I am just intrigued, as to why the boy isn't here attempting to stop you."

Weather scowled again, sitting up without breaking contact, instead intertwining their fingers as he glared off into the distance.

"If Time comes for a fight then I will be happy to oblige; _dear old bosses_ must be just waiting for my art to be grater to send him again after me and then yank his leash again."

Vortex's grumbling was interrupted by Nocturn's calm voice.

"I didn't mean Clockwork." After a small pause for dramatic measure the dream being continued. "I meant his offspring."

Vortex's eyes widened in shock but quickly narrowed in confusion. Clockwork copulating? Pff, nah.

Knowing his thoughts, Dream chuckled.

"Not like that. The boy is... unique." He said thoughtfully. "He walks the line of life and death, but hasn't yet reached the full heritage that comes from being created, through whatever means, by a being such like us.

I haven't faced him yet, but he's infamous in the Ghost Zone for always getting in the way of everyone. Have you seen him yet?"

"The half human is Clockwork's child? Ha! How did that even happen?"

"Hmm, I have an idea..." 

* * *

Clockwork contemplated the screens facing him from all sides, all the moments in all times at the same time. With a wave of his staff, all of them stopped, and with a buzz of static focused on the same image of three teenagers looking inside a portal to the unseen.

He closed his eyes as a pair of clock hands appeared next to him, making then a full circle and opening a portal that showed the exact same darkness as the contraption on his screens.

Danny walked inside the portal, darkness surrounding him even as he looked back at his friends, knowing he couldn't chicken out now.

He extended his arms, not wanting to collide with some equipment that might be scattered around; that was how his hand found the wall, and he felt a small bump on it.

"Uh?" Surprised, he was about to withdraw his hand, but he didn't feel when a bigger hand landed over his own, nor did he hear the whispered 'I'm sorry, Daniel.', he only felt the button sink and unleash the electric shock that attacked him from all sides while a crack in reality opened through him.

Clockwork wrapped his arms around the shrieking boy as the electricity went through them both but the pain didn't diminish nor stop; Time just made sure to keep Daniel alive enough.

When Death advanced in taking him away, he would make her step back in time, just a little, and she would advance again ,and he would send her back,, and they would keep playing tug and pull with his life, until Death relented and left, only taking a half of what was rightfully hers.

But Death and Time were on good terms, they understood and accepter each other, and she knew what he was doing, so she didn't press the matter, nor did she demand anything from him later on.

She looked at the humans desperately trying to stop the machine, then at the white-haired boy, little Limbo, the one being she would never have, and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, and left.

When Tucker and Samantha finally managed to unplug the portal, Danny lay on the floor unconscious and alone. 

* * *

Time walked down the hospital's halls, wearing his human form to avoid the Observant's attention, when a familiar face smiled at him with purple-painted lips from a chair next to a comatose human's bed.

"Poor soul, has been asleep for five years and only one relative comes to visit regularly." Dream held an inert hand between his own, the gesture easy as if it had been done for five years now. "How lucky to only dream of green fields, picnics and relaxing on a small boat in the lake, don't you think?"

Clockwork raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Lucky indeed." He turned to leave, knowing that that would prompt the gothic-looking being to speak his mind.

"The ghosts are talking, you know, about a portal opening," Time didn't turn around already knowing all possible outcomes and ready to face any. "but this one didn't seem like a regular one, no; it shook every lair and collapsed every natural portal at once." Nocturn's voice was low, barely a whisper, the tone it took when he wanted to keep his victims under the illusion of safety.

"How... good for them, to notice the weather by themselves now that there isn't someone to arbitrarily dictate it." He turned his head slightly and saw Nocturn's grip on the human tighten out of the corner of his eye, and then, with effort, relax again.

"Certainly." Dream rasped, holding back the fury at the reminder of his lover's imprisonment. "What is curious, though, is the screaming..." He let the words weight in the air for a moment, before carrying on. "they say the screaming was the worse.

It reminded them of dying, of being unable to hold onto life no matter how hard you try, and your soul being torn away from your body.

Isn't that just hilarious? Ghosts learning again what the fear of Death is like. I just wonder... what could possibly cause something like it."

He let a smile spread across his face, almost inhumanly wide, the only real smile he had given in centuries now. Clockwork didn't flinch, only hummed to himself, throwing a last "What indeed", before finally walking away. 

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**You can find me on tumblr as danny-phangirl :]**


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